I was part of the ‘Miracle on Ice,’ here’s why watching Team USA at the Beijing Olympics matters

In 1980, when my hockey teammates and I took to the ice against the Soviet Union, we were sure of one thing: Americans were watching us and cheering us on.

That doesn’t sound like much, but as an Olympic competitor, it’s often all you have. The thing people frequently forget about the Olympics is that outside of a few high-profile sports, most Olympians are amateur athletes. They pave their own way to compete, including everything from earning sponsor money to carving out the time to train.

Many Olympians are students. Most work part-time or full-time to pay the bills in addition to training for the world’s toughest competition – which is all to say that when the going gets tough, as it often does in high-level sports, the thing you fall back on is that your nation supports you. It meant a lot to me back in my competitive days, and it means a lot to the Olympians who are about to compete in the Winter Olympics in just a few weeks.

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Which is why I found it puzzling — indeed shocking — that some people in the media and in politics are telling Americans not to watch the Olympics this time around. Speaking as a gold-medal-winning American Olympian, don’t listen to them.

Here’s their argument, roughly: The Olympics are being held in China. If you don’t watch Team USA compete, that sends a message to Chinese leaders.

That’s it. That’s the sum total of the logic. And it’s wrongheaded in every possible way.

Ignoring Team USA’s upcoming events does nothing more than play right into Chinese hands.

 

Tuning out the Olympics will not register at all internationally. What it will do is insult the years of sweat and sacrifice that American Olympians have devoted to this moment. In a way, ignoring Team USA’s upcoming events does nothing more than play right into Chinese hands. It sends a message that we are so fractured as a country that we can’t even unite around our Olympic team.

It’s a shameful message, and the people peddling it should be ashamed of themselves. These are the same people who said the United States should boycott the Beijing Winter Games, and they are the same people calling for sponsors to ditch Team USA. All three of these ideas — boycotting the games, not watching, and asking sponsors to cut ties with Team USA — do more harm to U.S. athletes than they do to China.

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I am not a political person by nature or personality, and I hate to see the Olympics become politicized in this way. It’s never mixed well in the past. Just months after I had the chance to compete, a whole generation of Summer Olympians missed their chance, when the U.S boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It says something that multiple people involved in that boycott apologized for it and admitted that it accomplished nothing diplomatically.

What you won’t hear much about is the pain of those who didn’t get the chance to compete at the Summer Olympics in 1980. These are athletes who put forth the same effort as any Olympian before or since — and then had the chance snatched from them by politics. It left lasting scars and haunting questions.

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No member of Team USA should have to endure that, and no one should have to compete with the idea hovering in their minds that Americans don’t want them to or that they’ll be tuning out. It’s hard enough to be an Olympian; it gets harder when you think your country doesn’t support you.

Thankfully, outside a few vocal but misinformed voices in media and politics, most Americans cherish their Olympians. Poll after poll shows the public wants Team USA to compete and is enthused by their presence at the Winter Games. That makes sense because the American public is rational enough to know that Olympic competition is not where geopolitical scores should be settled.

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But to anyone on the fence about watching the games or about Team USA, I can offer this: I was an Olympic competitor because I wanted to compete and represent my country. And when I had the good fortune to do so, my country had my back. We could feel the support — in notes, nods, cheers, and enthusiasm. We felt it on the sidewalk and in the stands.

Give this generation of American Olympians that same support. They’ve earned it, and they are counting on it.

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